REQUIRED LISTENING: a musician's personal notes about favorite artists.
ROBERT PLANT
Dreamland.
In a way this disc slipped way under the radar (for many) because Robert's legacy is almost impossible to live up to. By not trying
to live up to it, he gives himself the freedom to journey onward--skating on the edge of many genres of music yet never staying long
enough to get comfortable. Dreamland is an excursion into mostly reworked late 60s psychedelic songs. Within that framework,
the soul of the blues is found. "Darkness, Darkness," "Win My Train Fare Home," and "Song Of The Siren"
are beautiful, even hypnotic, and reach deeper than any other work of his since the Led Zeppelin days. "Funny In My Mind," is
a reworking of a Bukka Whites (1940) blues classic while the bluesy "Red Dress" helps form an album that is equal parts Middle
Eastern, West Coast Psychedelia, English Folk and Mississippi blues. I sense that Robert Plant is getting closer to finding the answer
to his own musical quest(ion).
posted: November 2003. |
